Jake Berry Rossendale and Darwen, Conservative asked the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs whether British Waterways plans to compensate a boat owners and business owners affected by the temporary closure of a stretch of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal.

Almost 200 years to the day that it was first opened, 20 years since the navigation was opened once more, and 10 years after the hugely successful Lottery supported restoration project, the Kennet & Avon Canal could soon reclaim its status as a fully-fledged, working . . . → Read More: Kennet & Avon Canal Cruises Into The Future

The Erewash Valley trail project is a partnership involving British Waterways, the Local & County Councils and various other interested parties to deliver £520,000 of environmental improvements during 2010/11. This includes the formation of walking & cycling trails as well as benefits to wildlife and encouraging healthy living and connecting local . . . → Read More: Erewash Valley Sustrans Rangers

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Richard Benyon): I congratulate the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) on securing this debate. After such a tense afternoon in the Chamber, it is nice to be able to find a subject on which there . . . → Read More: Parliament Debate on Future of Waterways

In 1847, the Scottish novelist Hugh Miller described the River Irwell as “a flood of liquid manure, in which all life dies, whether animal or vegetable, and which resembles nothing in nature, except perhaps the stream thrown out in eruption by some mud-volcano”. Friedrich Engels was equally disparaging about the state of Manchester’s Irk: “a narrow, coal-black, foul-smelling stream … out of whose depth bubbles of miasmatic gases constantly rise and give forth a stench that is unbearable.” In its own dark manner, the industrial revolution brought Britain’s waterways to life. Our rivers and canals became the arteries of relentless economic growth and social change – but also the prime deposits of urban excrescence. Today, all cleaned up, they have the opportunity to be at the forefront of another programme of social change. For if this government really wants to live up to its rhetoric of the “Big Society”, it might quietly begin here. . . . → Read More: The towpath that leads to the Big Society